BRAMPTON, Ont. – Today marked a major milestone for the Trucks for Change (T4C) Network.

At 9 a.m. this morning the charitable mover, that connects charities with affordable, or donated freight services, moved its 10 millionth pound of donations for Habitat for Humanity Canada.

The transport truck that was honored to carry the load was one from Kriska Holdings, an original member carrier for T4C.

Pete Dalmazzi, president of T4C said today’s milestone was a dream come true.

“Ultimately, today is just a validation of the program that we started seven years ago that was endorsed by the OTA board of directors with the simple idea of helping charities in an efficient way,” he said. “We didn’t know if it was going to work then, so together with some leading carriers and Habitat, we started a pilot project. Habitat was the first charity we started with back in 2011. And we started from there and built it up. So as we sit here today and celebrate our 10 millionth pound of donated product that we’re transporting, it’s just a validation of how kind and generous our industry really is and has been for the last seven years.”

Dalmazzi said the partnership made perfect sense as Habitat had a problem finding affordable transportation services, and T4C’s goal was promoting the goodwill of the industry.

“This partnership is truly a match made in heaven,” he said.

Rob Voisin, the v.p. of capacity and performance at Habitat Canada said the partnership has saved Habitat more than $170,000 in transportation costs since 2011. To put that in perspective, it costs roughly $150,000 for Habitat to build a house start to finish.

“What Trucks for Change has been able to do for us, has allowed us to put products in our ReStore retail stores and building products in other communities that we couldn’t make work, economically, prior to our partnership,” Voisin added. “Now we can move products to more remote places, like Thunder Bay, Ont. It’s been a great partnership, T4C has certainly been a great leader in the space.”

Driving the truck from Habitat Canada’s warehouse in Brampton, Ont. to Kemptville, Ont. , Belleville, Ont.  and Ottawa, was Kriska driver, Sylvain Binette. Binette is a driver trainer for Kriska and has been driving since 1994.  He is currently an Ontario Trucking Association Road Knight. He said he was honored to deliver the load on behalf of the Kriska organization.